


A kind of harmony you might call ████

by imahira



Category: Kyou Kara Maou!
Genre: Allusions to War Crimes, Canon - Anime, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 23:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13557744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imahira/pseuds/imahira
Summary: A thief knows a thief, and a wolf knows a wolf.





	A kind of harmony you might call ████

Nigel Weiss Maxine was no sentimental, no bleeding heart. He took his pleasure in twisting, in manipulating, in the sudden shock of a victim caught unawares—he was willing to admit it was an uncommon pleasure, perverse even; but nothing truly unusual. A natural impulse common to all humans, taken, perhaps, to the extreme, but overall nothing more than an outlier on the spectrum of human temperament. He was unashamed.

Stoffel von Spitzweg was a different beast altogether. Maxine recognized in him that same craftiness, and when he acted it was with a mind to a larger plan; a grand, overarching purpose; an unyielding ambition. And yet there was a casual quality to it, an unpracticed affinity for cruelty that the man himself seemed not to recognize. His ambitions had steered a nation, his reach had spanned the globe, and yet his gaze remained fixed upon a singular throne room. He was capable of enjoying the smaller victories—pettiness, some might call it—but for the most part was incapable of noticing the bigger picture. If his goal was a small one he paid no heed to any further-reaching consequences; if it was larger he noticed none of the smaller details. His aim, once fixed, was unshakable, and he was utterly indifferent to anything outside it.

War, to Maxine, was a thousand smaller dramas of dashed expectations, of enemies to be disposed of—a country in wartime presented an almost unbearable number of possibilities. To be regent was to be intimately involved in the blighting of so many hopes, the unquestioned relocation of so many rivals. A prospect so tantalizing it was almost painful. But what von Spitzweg remembered, when pressed, was that he had ruled, that there had been obstacles, that he had dealt with them, that he had lost power. There were a thousand minor annoyances that he recalled in great detail, his nephews figuring in many of them. But he had taken little interest in the men actually sent off to battle. To have tasted such power and have enjoyed such limited parts of it was something beyond Maxine's comprehension.

There were, to be sure, a certain number of stories about enemies dispatched that they took a vicious pleasure in together after Maxine had at last coaxed them out. But in general, where the man should have thought big he thought small, and when he should have stopped to smell the roses he passed them by all unawares.

Perhaps that was what interested Maxine. A man so similar to himself, and yet so very different—that was a rarity. They spoke of the same desires, understood some parts of one another instinctively, and still other parts couldn't fathom in a lifetime of conversation. It was as if their hearts spoke wordlessly, and every now and then slipped quite suddenly into different languages.

Maxine wasn't fool enough to mistake von Spitzweg's lack of craft for sincerity; he wasn't fool enough to think he _wanted_ sincerity, but at the heart of it perhaps neither of them was meant for more.


End file.
